Palin's a fiscal conservative

Sarah Palin sought welfare for her town by campaigning in Washington for earmarks when she was mayor. Now she is governor of the biggest welfare state in the nation. A true fiscal conservative would figure out how to have the town and state pay their own way rather than relying on federal charity to cover their expenses.

However, as mayor of Wasilla, AK, Palin “was not always the fiscal watchdog she has since boasted of being.”

During her term in office, Palin cut property taxes and other small taxes on business. But as the Anchorage Daily News points out, “She wasn’t doing this by shrinking government.” During her tenure, the budget of Wasilla (population 5,469 in 2000) “apart from capital projects and debt, rose from $3.9 million in fiscal 1996 to $5.8 million.”

Palin also successfully pushed through a sales tax increase in Wasilla, which went to fund a $15 million sports complex. However, a land dispute over the sight of the complex led to “years of legal wrangling” and cost Wasilla almost $1.7 million, “a lot more than the roughly $125,000 the city would have paid in 1998 if it had closed a deal to buy the property outright.” Wasilla is still facing budget shortfalls from the case today.

When Palin left office in 2002, Wasilla had “racked up nearly $20 million in long-term debt,” or roughly $3,000 of debt per resident.

But Palin’s approach actually brings her in line with McCain, whose own “massive tax cuts” “would recklessly exacerbate the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush Administration” and cause the largest deficit in 25 years.

"Palin is a proven leader" would have been better, but thanks for posting this. I had not seen it. The more one looks at her record (on the job as apposed to in the pew) the worse she looks. Maybe she should have been trying for a church leadership position??

SARAH PALIN AND TAXES....Let's talk policy! And to make it even more interesting, let's talk tax policy!

So here's an interesting thing about Alaska governor Sarah Palin: she's a tax raiser. Last September she proposed a new state tax plan called ACES, and by November she had successfully pushed it through the Alaska legislature in a special session. ACES had two goals. First, it replaced a year-old plan called PPT that was mired in corruption and was widely distrusted. No problem there. Second, it was designed to increase revenue. PPT had raised revenues by $1 billion, but that was still less than everyone expected. So Palin's plan increased that by another $700 million.

But it gets even more interesting. ACES, of course, is a tax on the oil industry, since that's how the rugged individualists up north fund themselves. (In addition to massive infusions of federal cash, that is.) And it had three basic provisions:

* An increase in the basic tax rate on oil company profits from 22.5% to 25%.

* A windfall profits provision. When oil prices went over $50/barrel or so, the tax rate would rise 0.2% for each dollar.

*A tax floor. If oil prices fell below about $40/barrel, oil companies would still have to pay 10% of the gross price of the crude they produce.

...

Etc. If Palin were a Democrat, this is the kind of jeremiad you'd be hearing from Rush Limbaugh and Grover Norquist, but instead of talk about looting American businesses and destroying incentives to invest, we get crickets. Norquist doesn't even mention taxes here and Limbaugh, who's been talking up Palin for a while, doesn't either. "Babies, guns, Jesus. Hot damn!" was his reaction yesterday.

So: one of the first things Palin did after she took office was to propose a big tax increase that included a windfall profits tax on the oil industry.

There's a contradiction; how come non-radicals support radicals? That's the 64-thousand dollar q.

because Americans are in the habit of buying the package rather than the product.....package a radical as someone cool to have and and we will elect them.

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JTT

1

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Sat 6 Sep, 2008 09:52 pm

Barack Obama points up the deceptive ways of Republicans.

Quote:

Obama zeros in on Palin's early earmark acceptance

In Palin's case, Saturday marked the first time Obama has gone after her record directly. He cast her as a reformer only after she had embraced earmarks earlier in her political career.

"She's a skillful politician," Obama said of Palin, "but when you've been taking all these earmarks when it's convenient, and then suddenly, you're the champion anti-earmark person, that's not change. Come on. Words mean something. You can't just make stuff up."

Records have shown that Palin secured millions of dollars worth of earmarks for Wasilla, Alaska, as mayor.

But where has Barack Obama been? That's all the Republicans do is "make stuff up". Then they repeat it until the lies become reality for their base. That's exactly how the nonsense about McCain being a maverick got going.

It's obvious isn't it? There are whole slews of information now on Palin; her lies and innuendos, but they continue their charge that Obama doesn't have enough experience. Forget the very simple fact that Palin has no national or international experience, and she'll become one step from becoming commander in chief. What's wrong with this picture? Most conservatives are deaf and dumb, so they're a lost cause, but what happened to America and Americans? Don't they value honesty and who takes over our country? Don't they have the same worries about McCain's age and health, and who would take over in the event his health fails?

Palin already believes the task in Iraq was a command by god. Jesus, aren't people afraid?

Forget the very simple fact that Palin has no national or international experience, and she'll become one step from becoming commander in chief.

Where have you been, CI? Don't you know that Alaska is next to Russia? Both Cindy and John and some other Republican notables have said so. They're thinking of replacing Condi with Sarah for the remainder of Bush's term, as she's so versed in dealing with the Russians.

It's hard to match this osmotic background of hers. Condi's years of study aren't worth a hill of beans compared to living at the front. This will all be out in next weeks talking points.

You'll have to forgive this senior for these "moments" of mindlessness. What could I have been thinking? I understand from what little we really know about Sarah, that her osmotic background and experience is something to behold.